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In the mid-1800s, Jefferson was regarded as the steamboat entry port into Texas. When the Army Corps of Engineers cleared the Red River Raft, the water level near Jefferson fell and steamboats could no longer reach the town year-round. In 1873, Jefferson was first connected to the national rail network through the Texas and Pacific Railway.
In the 1890s, the Sherman, Shreveport and Southern Railway built tracks east from Jefferson to the Texas-Louisiana state line. This railway was later acquired by the Missouri-Kansas-Texas system. The first bridge over Big Cypress Bayou was a wooden trestle. In 1907, an iron bridge, built in 1897 by the Phoenix Bridge Company of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was installed here, allowing for commercial and private trains to cross high above the water. American architect and bridge builder William Howe (1803-1852) patented the “Howe truss bridge” in 1840. A truss bridge is a load-bearing structure of connected elements usually forming triangular units. Howe’s bridge is composed of diagonal structural beams that slope towards the center in compression with the vertical web members in tension. They are representative of common bridge types of the 20th century.
The bridge was decommissioned in 1992 when a newer bridge was built to the east. The Kansas City Southern Railway Company, which then owned the bridge, donated it to Marion County. As one of the last remaining iron Howe truss railroad bridges in the United States accessible for public view, it is no longer in use, but remains as a backdrop for the Port Jefferson History and Nature Center.
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